Scientific Innovation for DevelopmentII Establishing Pro-Innovation Environment

 

Innovation is a must because it represents a solution for solving life-problems. It is responsible, in particular, for the development of radically new competitive products, new competitive services and sound favorable changes in the production systems. So innovation is  the development of new values through solutions that meet new requirements, inarticulate needs or old customer or market needs as per new ways that create added value.

 

         Countries of super power in knowledge are also the same countries of super power in politics, reflecting twining of science and politics. This explains the unique strategic position of science in the priorities of these advanced countries. As a matter of fact the advanced countries have built strong national innovation systems stemming from their S and T system at large. In combination with this is the pro-innovation environment created in these countries to guarantee flourishing and continuity of the innovation activities.

 

 By and large, establishment of pro-innovation environment requires the following prerequisites.

1. Demographics: Special care should be given to the youth. Youth brings more than a base of workers and taxpayers; it brings ineluctable energy that propels everything. Amplified and leavened by the experience of their elders, youth and economic scale are not to be under-estimated, especially in the context of culture and education.

2. Culture: Culture cannot be changed or copied overnight. It is a feature of a people that has, to use a physics term, high inertia. A given culture should be distinguished by powerful features, namely, democracy, open-mindness, risk taking, hand work, playfulness and, critical for nascent new ideas, encouraging creativity and talent.

 

3. Education and life-long learning: To accomplish knowledge, skills, experience and ethics. The education system may be featured by flexibility and diversity of educational philosophies, curricula and professionalism.

 

4. Innovation within a global scene: Emphasis is placed on four revolutions: democratic, science and technology, economic groupings and free trade revolutions that have been witnessed during the last decade of the last century. Then come the three transformations starting from 2012, namely, big data, smart manufacturing and wireless revolution. The role of innovation in all these events is very significant.

Equally important prerequisites for establishment of pro-innovation environment which should be integrated with and added to the aforementioned 4 issues are:

5. Science and technology base and strategies/policies therein and the national innovation system stemmed thereof,

6. Innovation(Development) of a new product and the evolutionary stages involved in such development,

7. Marketing strategies and opportunities,

8. Scientific activities including, interalia, conferences, seminars, workshops and exhibitions,

 

 

During the last decade of the twentieth century, the life of all people was affected by four revolutions: Democratic Revolution; contemporary S and T revolution (Third wave), Economic groupings Revolution and Free-Trade Revolution and Establishment of world Trade Organization (WTO).

S and T Revolution led to Globalization phenomenon; Ending the 45 years cold-war led to the dominance of one power Changes in the weight of production inputs led to knowledge economy and information society and the Collapse of public sector led to free economy. As a result, profound changes occur in the human societies which, in turn, resulted in more dynamic - fast changing society. The new society is significantly different than the near past society with respect to size and shape of organizations, and paradigm of the management systems, as well as role of people and establishments along with  a strong social system tieing the components of this system all together. The fate of IDB member countries in confronting this transformation is a function of their estimation of challenges stemming from this transformation.

 

Challenges are numerous: scientific, technologic, economic, organizational, cultural and security challenges. The most important of these challenges is the challenge of education/learning with special reference to human development as the most important aspect of the contemporary S and T Revolution.

 

Human development is concerned with much more than the decrease or increase of income. It is, indeed, concerned with creation of environment in which the humans can develop their complete capabilities and live a productive and innovative life which cope with their needs. In that way, development is concerned with widening the fields of choices available for people to live the life which they appreciate, depending in this respect not only on the economic growth but also building up scientific and technological capabilities. The people should look at such capabilities as the engine for development at large.

 

Building up human capabilities constitutes the vital base for enlarging choices and garanteeing continuous prosperous and healthy life. Individuals should acquire wide knowledge and ability to reach resources required to achieve reasonable level of living and sharing in the people>s life.  As a matter of fact, existance of all this rely on the existence of S and T base and National Innovation System. It is as well to emphasize that the S and T system relies on the extent of connection between its three components: Education, Scientific research and applications (in industry, agriculture and services); and the position of each component in the strategic priorities of the country; and; the will of political leader and societal will to integrate and upgrade the S and T components in one system (Development system at large).

 

The year 2012 has witnessed three transformations: big data, smart manufacturing and wireless revolution.

 

Information technology has entered a big data era. Processing power and data storage are virtually free. A hand-held device, the iPhone, has computing power that shames the 1970s era IBM mainframe. The internet is evolving into the “cloud”- a network of thousands of data centres any one of which makes a 1990 super computer look antediluvian. From social media to medial revolutions anchored in metadata analysis, wherein astronomical feats of data crushing enable heretofore unimonaginable services and businesses, humans are on the cusp of unimaginable new markets.

 

The second transformation: Smart Manufacturing. This is the first structural shift since the economic power of “mass production” was launched. While evidence is already seen in automation and information system applied to supply-chain management, human is just entering an era where the very fabrication of physical things is revolutionized by emerging materials science. Engineers will soon design and build from the molecular level, optimizing features and even creating new materials, radically improving quality and reducing waste.

 

Devices and products are already appearing based on computationally engineered materials that literally did not exist a few years ago: novel metal alloys, graphene instead of silicon transistors (graphene and carbon enable a radically new class of electronics, and structural materials), and meta materials that possess properties not possible in nature, e.g., rendering an object invisible-speculation about which received understandable recent publicity.

 

The era of new materials will be economically explosive when combined with 3-D printing, also known as direct- digital manufacturing-literally “printing” parts and devices using computational power, lasers and basic powdered metals and plastics.

 

Finally, there is the unfolding communication revolution where soon most humans on the planet will be connected wirelessly. Never before have a billion people –soon billions more-been able to communicate, socialize and trade in real time.

 

The application of the radical collapse in the cost of wireless connectivity are as big as those of following the dawn of telegraphy/telephony. Coupled with the cloud, the wireless world provides cheap connectivity, information and processing power to nearly everyone, elsewhere. This introduces both rapid changes – e.g. Arab spring- and good opportunity.

 

            Creativity can be defined as thoughts which are described as new, useful and connected with solution of certain problems, or, assembling or reassembling of known structures of knowledge in new useful shapes.

By virtue of its connection with the human and his thought, creativity is exchangeable with imagination, originality, divergent thinking or inventiveness or intuition or ventureness or discovery.

 

Hence, creativity is not only confined to the technical side but also addresses development of products and processes pertaining to them and supplied the market with them. Creativity is additionally concerned with machines and tools and manufacturing processes and improvement of the manufacturing system itself, and training results and satisfaction on the business, which lead ultimately to increase in productivity. Thus, creativity includes methods of both management and manufacturing. It also includes improvement of a product and methods of its manufacturing.

 

In general, performance level is controlled by the total sum of interactions between:

1. Ability for performance, which relies on the individual level: Education, experience and skills. And on the level of economic unit, the performance comprises the resources and different facilities.

2. Wish to undertake performance, which can also be addressed in relation to interest, initiatives and directions of the individual and his wish to perform the work.

As far as economic unit is connected, it should have the desire to grow and to progress.

 

3. The surrounding environment on the level of economic unit should recognize progress based on innovation, creativity, and its encouragement.  And on the level of society: A society recognizs creativity and contribution in it and protect it through the provision of ways and means of progress.

 

Innovation has come as a solution for solving life-problem. It is a fatal loss for the innovator and the society when the innovator does not have the tools and facilities to implement his thoughts.

 

If the international economy is knowledge economy, then development of                             thoughts of innovators and the help to produce their protypes and introduce the latter to the market must be the duty of investors as it represents a good opportunity for investment and, in turn, provide opportunities for better life.

 

Based on the above, social innovation has come to present methods for upgrading the society and giving the country a position among other countries world-wide.

 

The product (and/or service) plays a central role in the activities of all organizations because it is the medium through which they seek to achieve their dual objectives of maximizing both consumer and organizational satisfaction.

The stages through which new products evolve may be summarized as follows:

1. Idea generation;  

2. Idea screening;

3. Idea evaluation;

4. Technical Development;

5. Testing ; and

6. Commercialization.

Innovation comprises the aforementioned six stages of the evolutionary cycle of a new product, which means that innovation pertains to the new product from concept – to- market. By being first in the market, product loyalty and name recognition are developed and state-of- the – art technology can be premiered, yielding significant competitive advantage. These aspects create the long-term advantages that permit companies to become market leaders.

 

Concepts of business strategy are much owes military thinking. Accordingly, four choices are principally available- straight ahead, left flanking, right flanking and by- pass strategy.

 

In business terms a head-on attack may be linked to the economist’s concept of price competition between undifferentiated products, and be distinguished as a strategy of attrition. In contrast to this, many firms prefer to compete indirectly by pursuing a strategy of product differentiation, which may be linked to a flanking attack in military terms. Finally, there is the bypass strategy –which uses airborne forces in military terms while almost invariably based upon innovation in business terms.  It is the strategy most likely lead to a conclusion outcome. It is for this reason that business firms concentrate on much effort upon research and development for, while most innovation will be relatively minor and lead only to a differentiated version of an existing product, there is always the possibility of achieving a breakthrough which will endow the innovator with a monopoly of market.

It has been suggested that the initiatives and responses open to the product strategies consist of six basic options:

1. Innovate;

2. Imitate- the “fast second”, “me too”, reversed engineered solution;

3. Adopt- apply for license to manufacture;

4. Adapt- find a fresh application (will require 2 and 3 too);

5. Ignore- continue with existing product- mix ;and

6. Resign- withdraw form this market, alter product- mix.

 

            The fundamental marketing opportunity is described as the chance to provide satisfaction. It is a satisfaction that consumers wish to acquire. Marketing opportunities fall into four basic categories:

 

1. The opportunity to innovate

2. Opportunity to improve efficiency

3. The opportunity to create competitive differences.

4. The opportunity to curve out a market niche.

 

Mention should be made that “innovate” is used here in the widest sense to include not only product innovation but also innovation in the means of distributing and promoting products. This is a highly positive approach to marketing and what may be termed as a “leading” strategy.

 

Innovation can be divided in four phases all having their own specific characteristic features. The four phases are:

1. Embryonic phase;

2. Growth phase;

3. Maturation phase; and

4. Aging phase.

In the embryonic phase, innovation is not in wide and general use. First working applications, single units or prototypes, are available. Technical solutions are unstable and unreliable. Knowledge about innovation and how to use it is low. Infrastructure supporting the use (maintenance services etc.) is missing. User population grows slowly. The improvements are determined by changes in the fundamental technology. Production is based on machine specific, skilled labour and general-purpose machines. In general, products are expensive and changes are technology driven.

 

In the growth phase, the innovation is diffused into general use but its availability is still restricted. Constricted mass production of products having fairly acceptable quality starts. Infra structure needed in wide use is developing. Fast quantitative growth of user population starts, prices are decreasing and the general knowledge about the product is increasing. The dominance of the fundamental technology is changed to the dominance of the product properties and its manufacturing technology. In manufacturing, product specific about skills and special adaptation of machines are needed. In general, changes are still technology driven.

 

In the maturation phase, the product is easily available. Production is based on improved manufacturing systems (Semi skilled labour, large-scale automation); both product and process are stable. The product is widely known and there exists a supporting infrastructure. Quantitative growth of user population is strong but also the qualitative growth in the user population has started. The price and the quality of the product is stabilized. Technology dominance is changing to marketing dominance.

In the aging phase, the product is in mass use. Production efficiency (automation) is a key factor. Marketing is based upon price competition. The qualitative growth of the user population becomes more important than the quantitative growth.

 

 

Diffusion of innovation research was first started in 1903 by seminal researcher Gabriel Tarde, who first plotted the S-shaped diffusion curve. Tarde (1903) defined the innovation-decision process as a series of steps that includes:

1. First knowledge

2. Forming an attitude

3. A decision to adopt or reject

4. Implementation and use

5. Confirmation of the decision

 

Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spreaded from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This process has been proposed that the life cycle of innovations can be described using the ‘s-curve’ or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point, customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its life cycle growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return

 

The s-curve derives from an assumption that new products are likely to have “product life”. i.e. a start-up phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact, the great majority of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.

 

Innovative companies will typically be working on new innovations that will eventually replace older ones. Successive s-curves will come along to replace older ones and continue to drive growth upwards. In the figure above the first curve shows a current technology. The second shows an emerging technology that currently yields lower growth but will eventually overtake current technology and lead to even greater levels of growth. The length of life will depend on many factors.

 

 

            Innovation is always associated with originality, or bring new solutions for problems in different disciplines.

 

 Innovation presents the power of human brain in forming new relationships for the sake of change.

 

Innovation, therefore, means provision of unique solution (or change) (never precedented) and with value (knowledge, practical, valuable).  And according to the cultural paradigm (view), Innovation re-presents a criticism for reality which the innovation is against and left the reality back.

            Innovation is often connected with a person. Innovation may also occur through few persons from within or outside the organizational establishment. Societal Innovation, on the other hand, refers to application of scientific methodology on the societal level as a whole. Accordingly, societal innovation leads to diffusion of the innovation right and make all the people (society) in every moment of their life able to make use of all the components of the innovation with respect to persons (human, manpower) materials, living organisms and energy and institutions. In this way, it is possible to guarantee it is possible to grantee better life in addition to, forecasting changes and challenges and be ready for their confrontation.

 

Societal innovation may be exemplified by the following paradigms:

1- Quality circles which were spreaded and contributed in technology development in Japan, and totalitiness of quality management, in addition to management of trade using just in time production,

2- Rebuild the society in a time shorter than expected as happened in Germany after the 2nd world war.

3- The success of the Egyptian Military forces in destroying Bar lev line during the 6th October 1973 war.

4- Cooperation among a group of people to achieve breakthrough in normal situations as happened in establishment and management of the Centre of Kidney Research, El-Mansoura University, Egypt.

 

5- The first 18 days of the 25th January 2011 Revolution where the state of the art scientific facilities were peacefully used and all the Egyptians committed for the Revolution success.

Obviously, then, societal innovation leads to larger and more sound achievements because it is the total sum of a number of innovations of individuals sharing in the achievements whether their number was in tens as in the case of Kidney Research Centre, or in thousands as in October 1973 war, or in millions as in Germany, Japan, Malaysia and Turkey.

 

 

• There is a clear and permanent link between science and politics, because science depends on the people, all the people. There is no group (segment) of the society which produces science and progress while other segments of the society remains only receiving.

 

• It is evident; therefore, that future of science is a manifestation of people’s belief in science and their contribution in its activities. Science means: first, the feeling of their belonging to the science and their readiness to understand and to contribute in the science progress.

 

        How the normal citizen contributes in science progress

 

• Contribution in scientific progress occurs when every citizen master his work, whatever this work is. It is not a condition that all citizens should be in laboratories to achieve scientific progress. But what is really a must is that the work should be done with scarification, sincerity, creativity and innovation Every citizen should be aware of scientific developments in his own work and makes use of this in enhancing his knowledge, skills and experience as prerequisites for innovation.